Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst

When Being Too Relaxed Causes Problems

I misunderstood relaxation and accidentally hurt myself and others.

Relaxing is sometimes challenging for me. Not because I prefer to stay busy, but because until recently, I didn’t understand how to do it.

Some of the questions that came out of my confusion looked like this:

• Is relaxation only meant for rest and rejuvenation?
• Does it mean to be easy going?
• What is the balance between relaxing and not relaxing?
• What does a non-relaxed person look like?
• Are they outgoing? Tense? Busy?
• If relaxation is so nice, why do I feel like crap when I try to do it?

I may have overthought most of this, but still I wondered.

My misunderstanding

I used to think that the more reserved I am, and the less I did was a measure of how relaxed I was.

Of course, knowing myself, I took it to an extreme. I’d go way overboard and relax my way into a cozy, slothful stupor.

Doing this obviously came with its fair share of problems, which only agitated the stress I was trying to heal.